Sherwood Anderson's critique of Taylorism in "Lift Up Thine Eyes"

¶ … Lift Up Thine Eyes," by Sherwood Anderson. Specifically, it will give examples of Taylorism (Frederick Winslow Taylor), and answer the questions: What are the author's feelings towards Taylorism, and what is the point of the title?

LIFT UP THINE EYES

Frederick Winslow Taylor devised "Scientific Management," the ultra efficient method of assembly line production that was used in Ford's auto plants, and that Anderson clearly refers to in this piece. "Taylor's ideas, clearly enunciated in his writings, were widely misinterpreted. Employers used time and motion studies simply to extract more work from employees at less pay. Unions condemned speedups and the lack of voice in their work that 'Taylorism' gave them" (Eldred). The term "Taylorism" came to be applied to his management studies and beliefs, and his ideas became extremely controversial, as this piece plainly illustrates. Management used Taylor's ideas to speed up and simplify production - they used fewer employees while creating more products due to efficiency. However, if his ideas were applied incorrectly, they could cause more harm than good, and actually slow up productivity and quality in the factory (Eldred).

Anderson's pointed piece fairly drips with sarcasm, from the ironic title, which invokes thoughts of religious devotion, to the portrayal he has of the company, the managers, and the assembly line itself. He is totally contemptuous of the practice of Taylorism, as can be seen in the way he creates the assembly line as a character in the story, something that lives and breathes just as the men who have to struggle to keep up with it live and breathe. He says, "It moves. It moves. It moves" (Anderson 362), just as if it is some kind of beast that the workers must tame, or it will tame them, and they will be fired. Why? "You know'" (Anderson 362). Anderson says "The belt is God," and so it rules over all the assembly plants, and the workers who toil in them. If a worker cannot keep up with the unrelenting belt, then there is no mercy for him, he in unceremoniously fired, and thrown out by a policemen kept especially for such cases. Anderson demonstrates the inhumanity of man toward each other in the name of the company they work for, and shows the inhumanity of the company itself. The workers are nothing more than bodies that fill a need, and if they no longer fill that need, they are expendable.

Anderson uses irony and sarcasm throughout the piece to get his point across to the reader. The title is ironic because it denotes religious belief, but in the story, the workers "lift up thine eyes" to the automated parts as they are lowered onto the belt that is "God." The only religion in their lives is the religion of the belt, and if they fail to worship it, they will be out of a job. Anderson walked away from a lucrative career in industry to become a writer, and it is clear with this piece that he wanted to show America the inherent problems with Taylorism and Ford's assembly lines. They might be more efficient, but they were terrible places to work, especially when the bottom line of the factory was production and production only.